Your partner is not the one who needs to do their work
It is never your partner who just needs to do their work.
It is a big red flag for me when I hear someone say, “My partner does xyz, and they just need to change.”
The partner you attract is always a reflection of you.
Something in you is always mirroring back this part of them.
I can already hear people saying “but what about in abuse?!” and yes, it’s even true then.
You have to look at the part of you that is allowing and even desiring this to occur.
This doesn’t mean that someone else’s behavior is okay, or that you deserve it, or any of that.
But it does mean that if you don’t want to repeat the same patterns again you will have to choose to look at what in you is perpetuating it.
You might not like hearing this, and it’s also true.
Nothing irks me more than when women weaponize my posts against the men in their lives.
They say things like, “He should be more present! I want him to be in his King energy! He doesn’t do his work!”
No.
If you want those things and you don’t have them, you must look at the parts of you that love things to be exactly the way they are.
You want him to be more present? Well, how are you terrified of being seen by his presence? How do you manipulate and emasculate him so that he doesn’t even want to be present with you?
Where aren’t you doing your work?
I spent years with partners who “weren’t doing their work.” Really I liked to have the emotional one-up in relationship and I was deeply afraid of being completely vulnerable and open and giving up my game to a man.
And my responsibility at the end of the day was to look at why I was attracting that and to choose something different for myself.
If you don’t want to be with your partner exactly as they are right now forever then you have to question why you are dating this person. Are you attracted to a fantasy of who they are?
But I wouldn’t leave until you are crystal clear on the work you need to do.
Because there is ALWAYS work you need to be doing. And if you aren’t doing it, you will attract the same patterns over and over and over again.
I’ve noticed that there are some women who really love to follow Jordan but cannot stand me.
Now, not everyone has to like me. I am definitely not for everyone.
And – I think this often points to something else.
Women who have wounding with men in particular love to follow Jordan because he is a “good guy.” He is conscious. He is present. He says nice things about relationships.
But if a woman like that was in a room with a man like Jordan she would not know the first thing to do to be able to relate to him.
She wants the masculine in his highest place, but she is not willing to do the work to be fully open and receptive from her feminine.
My openness triggers her. My feminine triggers her. My surrender triggers her. My full expression triggers her. I am “just a little too much.”
These are reflecting back to her the places she deeply desires to open but is afraid.
The truth is that having a conscious, healthy, beautiful relationship requires you to do a lot of work.
Your partner, too. AND YOU.
It will be work that brings you to your knees and breaks you open and has you feel past emotions you might not “want” to feel.
And it is also what will allow you to feel all of life more deeply. More fully.
The willingness to be ripped apart by life IS what allows you to have a beautiful life.
This work requires you to take responsibility for your own patterns and your own emotions.
It requires you to show up fully for yourself.
Not because you are trying to “get” something for yourself. Not because you are trying to get a relationship or to get your relationship to look a certain way. Not because your partner just has to do theirs and you are just playing along.
There is never a time when you have done all the work but your partner has not and you are playing absolutely no role in the patterns that are coming up in your relationship.
You take responsibility.
You show up fully because that is what is true.
This work will ask everything of you.
It will also give you everything. Without you asking for it.
If you liked this piece, you might also enjoy:
– Leaning in while fighting and the urge to run away
– Taking responsibility for your desire
– Doubting your relationship? 6 simple questions to ask yourself
– What to do if sex with your ex was better than sex with your current partner
– Where it’s really at for me are the quiet moments